Welcome to the official Web site for the book Color and Money: How Rich White Kids Are Winning the War over College Affirmative Action. There is plenty here for scholars, journalists, and general readers, including suggestions for book discussion groups, links to additional readings and other Web sites of interest, and news updates related to the affirmative action debate.

What people say about Color and Money-

"Anyone interested in the inequities of the selective college admissions process will find Color and Money clear-eyed, hard-hitting, enlightening, and informative."--Rachel Toor, author of Admissions Confidential: An Insider's Account of the Elite College Selection Process.

"For those concerned about why the march toward social justice in America has faltered badly for nearly forty years, Peter Schmidt's Color and Money is a highly instructive--and greatly disturbing--guidepost." --Richard Kluger, author of Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality.

"An indispensible guide to the debate over affirmative action in the United States."--Michael Lind, author of The Next American Nation.

"This book is a must read for anyone concerned with access to higher education, especially to the nation’s elite universities, as well as with larger questions of social policy and social justice."--Terry MacTaggart, Former Chancellor, University of Maine System

"Books on the highly-charged issue of affirmative action are usually one-sided and inflammatory. Peter Schmidt's Color and Money is a wonderful exception. It provides an honest and fair examination that is also passionate and illuminating."--Richard D. Kahlenberg, Senior Fellow, The Century Foundation, and author of The Remedy: Class, Race, and Affirmative Action

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Peter Schmidt is available as a speaker

Peter Schmidt is available to speak at colleges, bookstores, schools, churches, and at gatherings of education associations. His past speaking engagements are listed at the bottom of this Web site. If interested in having him appear, e-mail him at schmidt_peter@msn.com. He also is available as an expert source for journalists covering affirmative action. Those on a tight deadline should email him at peter.schmidt@chronicle.com.

Hear interviews with Peter Schmidt

Jack Lessenberry of Michigan Public Radio talked to Peter Schmidt about Color and Money in August. You can hear the interview here. Reading the book inspired Jack to write an essay on it, which you can read here. You also can hear Peter Schmidt talk about his book on the NPR program Justice Talking and in a Chronicle of Higher Education podcast.

Color and Money Is a College Course!

Many college professors are now using Color and Money in their classes, but Jack Dougherty, the director of the educational studies program at Trinity College in Connecticut, has gone a big step beyond. He has decided to name a freshman seminar "Color and Money" and to structure the class around the book. He has graciously agreed to share his syllabus, available here, for faculty members at other colleges who may have the same idea.

THE COLOR AND MONEY BLOG:

Friday, March 12, 2010

As reported here in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Obama administration pledged this week to expand enforcement of civil-rights laws in education. At a press conference held in Selma, Ala., on the 45th anniversary of the historic civil-rights march there, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights "has not been as vigilant as it should have been" over the past decade, and plans to undertake investigations at six colleges and 30 school districts to determine whether they are complying with the law.

The assistant secretary for civil rights, Russlynn H. Ali, angered conservatives by saying the department would start using "disparate-impact" analysis, which attempts to prove discrimination not through direct evidence of racist acts, but through numerical data showing that policies have a disproportionate impact on certain groups of people. The approach is controversial because numerical gaps in educational participation often can be linked to factors other than deliberate discrimination, such as gaps in educational preparation linked to culture, immigrant status, or socioeconomic class.

The U.S. Supreme Court barred the use of disparate-impact analysis as the basis of private lawsuits against federally supported state agencies in a 2001 decision. The majority opinion, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, said the civil-rights law at issue in the case, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, does not specifically give private citizens the right to sue to ensure that its provisions are enforced. As discussed at length in Color and Money, the Clinton administration came under intense criticism for--and eventually abandoned--proposed regulations warning college admissions offices not to rely too heavily on standardized tests that were thought to be biased against minority students or women based on disparate-impact analysis.

RESOURCES FOR READERS

Below you will find research links, suggestions for book discussion groups, and supplemental readings, organized by chapter.

All of the additional readings from the author listed here can be downloaded free. A few of the other reports and documents listed cannot be accessed without subscribing to the source or paying a fee. The book links are to the Amazon.com reviews and descriptions of the books. You can often find other book reviews through google, and you can always choose to buy the books elsewhere. The listing of a book or other document here should not be interpreted as an endorsement of its content or the views expressed by its author.

Statement of financial interest in books offered in association with Amazon

For every new book you purchase through one of the Amazon.com links provided here, Amazon will pay Peter Schmidt a small commission that he will use to help offset the costs of researching his book, maintaining this Web site, and undertaking other research projects down the road. (This commission does not affect your book price.)Using the links to examine a book in no way obliges you to buy the book through Amazon. As noted above, the listing of a book here should not be interpreted as an endorsement of it.

Meet the author of Color and Money

A veteran journalist who has devoted two decades to covering education from the trenches

Peter Schmidt is a Senior Writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education, where he has covered affirmative action, state and federal higher-education policy, education research, historically black colleges and universities, and connections between schools and colleges, and issues related to academe freedom. He previously covered school desegregation, urban education, immigrant education, and education research for Education Week. He also has reported for the Associated Press, the Detroit Free Press, the Northern Virginia Daily, and the Ann Arbor News, and he has written for the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Weekly Standard, Teacher Magazine, and Detroit Monthly magazine. His work has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Virginia Press Association, and the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. He has received two National Education Writers Association awards for his work dealing with affirmative action and a third award from the association for his coverage of educational research. He was given the 2007 Unity Award for coverage of minority issues in education.

HELP SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT COLOR AND MONEY!

Color and Moneyis a book that can change America for the better--if people read it. Please find below links to book advertisements that can be downloaded for publication, for leafletting, or for public posting. Bloggers and scholars with Web pages, please consider linking to colorandmoney.com. Help a good cause. Help spread the word about Color and Money.

Click links to download Color and Money ads.

Make yourself heard. Write the author at schmidt_peter@msn.com.

Peter Schmidt welcomes feedback on the book, suggestions for this Web site, news tips, compliments and complaints. He will gladly publish here selected first-person testimonials relevant to his book, as well as original essays on any subject that the book covers.

Subscribe to The Chronicle of Higher Education

The Chronicle of Higher Education is an invaluable resource for professors, parents of college-bound students, and anyone else interested in the latest news on what is happening on campuses. Temporary online passes are available for those who wish to subscribe on a trial basis.

February 28, 9 a.m. National Education Writers Association conference held at the San Francisco Chronicle. (Moderating panel discussion on Asian Americans titled "Model Minority: Myth or Reality.")Thursday, Nov. 5, 1 p.m.: Annual conference of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Vancouver, British Columbia. Panel discussion on the relationship between educational researchers and the media.